Wen Xian had never fled in such a messy state before, but she didn’t dare stop, even though her legs felt like lead and her lungs burned with stabbing pain.
She only came to a sudden halt when the roar of some animal echoed from somewhere.
She frantically looked around and realized she had already ventured deep into the forest. Tall, dense vegetation blocked the sunlight, and the forest was dim; she could barely see three meters ahead.
Under normal circumstances, she would have panicked, but unexpectedly, she felt safe.
She bent over, hands on her knees, and gasped for breath until she calmed down. She stopped moving randomly, tidied the ground a little, then took a cushion from her space and placed it on the ground to sit.
Her gaze went to her left shoulder: her clothes had a large hole burned through, the fabric around the hole scorched by the heat of the gunpowder, and up close she could smell the faint char of the material.
She took a couple of gulps of water, soothing her parched throat from the rapid breathing. Gradually, she regained composure. She set the bottle down, removed her hat and mask, ignoring the sweat dampening her hair. Shaking, she loosened her clothing and carefully looked at the spot where she had been hit.
But the gruesome scene she had imagined wasn’t there. Her white T-shirt was stained with some blood, but the wound itself had already healed, leaving only a hole the size of a pinky. She could see the tail of the bullet through the hole.
Wen Xian was stunned for a long moment. She thought she understood her body’s mutations deeply, but she didn’t expect it to self-heal, so quickly, so completely…
Instinctively, she pressed the small hole. It didn’t hurt.
For a moment, she felt like she had become a monster.
Still, no matter what, she had to be grateful for such a body.
Suppressing her swirling thoughts, she searched her space and eventually found a pair of tweezers in her makeup bag. With trembling hands, she extracted the bullet casing from her body.
The process of removing a foreign object from her own body… was indescribable.
She stared at the wound, and as expected, once the foreign object was removed, it visibly healed before her eyes, until there was no trace of injury left.
Only then did Wen Xian finally exhale fully. She put her clothes back on while thinking about her next move.
She didn’t expect Ding Wei to act so recklessly. Presumably, her ability had already been exposed. Taking advantage of the chaos, she had escaped. They might not even know she had fled into the mountains; they could still be searching the town for her. In that case, she couldn’t descend yet. She would have to stay in the mountains for a few days, observe the situation below, and find an opportunity to leave.
Fortunately, she had already gathered plenty of supplies, enough to last a month in the mountains.
As for Ding Wei…
Wen Xian slowly exhaled. She didn’t know why Ding Wei hated her so intensely, but she had never harmed anyone of her own accord. Since others wanted her dead, then…
“Roar!”
Suddenly, the roar of an animal sounded again, and this time it seemed to be getting closer.
Wen Xian quickly stood up, alert and scanning her surroundings, but she couldn’t spot the source. Everything beyond a certain distance was invisible. She hurriedly stored the items she had taken out into her space and couldn’t help but think that she should find a chance to get a telescope.
Then she paused, stood fully upright, and looked at the surrounding plants. She remembered the willow tree that could communicate with her, and chose the largest tree in sight. Tentatively, she reached out her hand. Immediately, a wave of joyful sensation flowed into her mind. She tried to communicate, but received no response.
She kept an eye on the noises around her while searching for a mutated plant she could talk to. After touching a dozen large trees with no response, she finally focused on a massive cluster of vine-like plants before her.
She touched the round leaves of the vines, and a clear, cheerful voice came to her: “King, King~”
Wen Xian felt a rush of joy. “Hello, can you help me with something?”
Vines: “Okay, okay.”
“Can you check whether there are any mutated animals nearby that could threaten me?”
“Okay, okay, okay.”
Immediately, a series of ‘swish swish’ sounds rang out as multiple vines extended in all directions.
Wen Xian was both surprised and touched. Compared to the humans who had caused her so much distress before, these mutated plants seemed incredibly simple and endearing.
The swishing sounds continued without pause. The vines’ scanning range must be considerable, though she wondered if it would affect them in any way.
Thinking for a moment, she asked, “Do I have anything you need on me?”
The clear little voice grew noticeably excited: “Energy! Energy!”
Energy? Wen Xian looked at her own body. Did she have energy? Then, in an instant, she vanished from the spot and returned to her space.
One corner of her space was already filled with all sorts of items. She didn’t have time to tidy it and walked to the flower bud in the center. She looked at the green crystal core that shimmered with light, this must be the energy the vines wanted. But how could she give it to them?
She couldn’t take the entire crystal core out. After a moment’s thought, she tentatively asked, “Can you give me some of your energy?”
The flower bud didn’t move. The crystal core didn’t move.
Wen Xian sighed. It seemed communication wasn’t working. With a thought, she returned to the cluster of vines and said regretfully, “I’m sorry, I don’t know how to give it to you.”
She sensed the vines’ disappointment, but then the little voice brightened again: “It’s okay, it’s okay.”
Wen Xian, however, felt a bit uneasy. She wasn’t the kind of person who only took and never gave.
After thinking for a moment, she took out a fruit knife and held the tip over a lighter until it was hot. Once the blade cooled, she made a small cut on her finger. Seeing the wound start to heal, she quickly squeezed out a drop of blood. Instantly, the previously quiet forest seemed to be stimulated, and countless plants surged toward her.
Wen Xian froze in shock and instinctively took two steps back toward the vines. Then, several arm-thick vines shot out suddenly, and with a series of loud crackling sounds, the plants advancing on her were repelled in just a few strikes.
Then, a particularly bright green small vine shot up right in front of her with a ‘whish’. The few rounded leaves on its branches trembled violently, as if electrocuted, while a clear, cheerful little voice buzzed like a tiny generator: “Energy, energy, energy, energy, energy…”
Wen Xian: …
Alright, she no longer had to doubt whether her blood contained energy. She hurriedly extended her finger, and the little vine immediately wrapped around it. Its pointed tip quickly touched the drop of blood, and in almost the blink of an eye, it had completely absorbed it.
Just as Wen Xian was about to relax, the ground beneath her trembled. She panicked, thinking an earthquake had struck, and nearly lost her balance, but several thick vines grabbed her firmly. She watched in awe as the already vast vine cluster expanded many times over in just a few breaths.
Faint wails and shouts echoed from somewhere in the distance. Her gaze followed, and she saw the vine cluster, like a tyrant, claiming the territories of countless surrounding plants. Many plants either fled frantically or were crushed and covered in an instant. The commotion lasted nearly five minutes before finally subsiding.
“King~ King~ King~”
The little vine that had absorbed her blood clung to her affectionately. Wen Xian looked at it, if before it had been only the size of a pinky, now it was as thick as her thumb, at least twice as long.
She could feel that this was the vine’s main body and had never expected that a single drop of her blood could contain such immense energy.
She didn’t know whether this energy only affected plants or if it could influence animals, or even humans…
A chill ran down her spine. She quickly pushed those terrifying thoughts from her mind and smiled, gently touching the little vine’s leaves, which earned her even more affectionate closeness.
‘Swish, swish, swish.’ Wen Xian looked up to see countless thickened vines crawling back. Then the little vine’s voice echoed in her mind: “King, far away, big animal, fighting, danger.”
Before, it could only repeat words, but now it could communicate simply. Wen Xian marveled at the wonders of creation again and quickly asked, “Is it far from here?”
“Far, very far.”
Wen Xian breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t know what kind of animal was fighting, but as long as it stayed far enough away, it wouldn’t threaten her. As for her earlier thought of confronting a mutated animal in battle… well, that could wait. It was getting late, and the most important thing now was to find a temporary place to rest.
Although her space was undoubtedly an extremely safe shelter, the apocalypse had only just begun. She needed to adapt to such an extreme environment. Moreover, she couldn’t guarantee that she would always be alone in the future, so the space could only serve as a refuge in moments of crisis.
Looking around, Wen Xian finally focused on the little vine. Right now, there was no place safer than here. After a moment of thought, she asked, “Can you help me make a house to rest in?”
“Huh?”
The little vine’s tip tilted slightly, and its tiny voice sounded puzzled. Wen Xian almost laughed out loud, how could a plant be this cute?
She visualized a simple house in her mind and communicated it to the vine: “Like this, is it okay?”
“Yes, yes.”
Then she watched as the thick vines began to move. Soon, a simple room appeared before her, almost identical to the image in her mind. Inside, it easily fit a 1.5-meter-wide bed.
Wen Xian was overjoyed, though she regretted not having collected a proper bed beforehand, but it wasn’t a major problem.
She mentally sketched the shapes of a single bed, a table, and a chair, and sure enough, the little vine obediently created them. After entering the room, she had it make a door as well. Now she had a temporary resting place in the mountains.
The vine cluster occupied nearly half the mountainside. With no cover around and the sky growing dim, she checked her phone, it was already past six. She first laid out the blanket to make the bed, then touched her slightly sunken stomach.
Entering her space, she roughly surveyed her supplies. She hadn’t had time to organize them while collecting, but had roughly separated them into zones.
The supplies now occupied one corner of the space. On the far left were the Chinese medicine cabinet and dozens of bags of herbs, followed by drinking water. In addition to the eight barrels of water she had drawn from the pool at Feihua Pavilion, there were six unopened large barrels of drinking water, nine cases of ordinary bottled water (24 bottles per case), and over thirty loose bottles of various mineral water.
Next came miscellaneous items, clothes, blankets, pots, pans, various knives, lighters, and so on. Anything useful Wen Xian had collected. The pile was huge. Next to it were food supplies: rice, flour, cooking oil, instant noodles, biscuits, bread, chocolate, jerky, dried fruits, and a small amount of fresh fruit. Then came the items she had gathered earlier from the inn, mostly personal effects, some food, and that pile of mushrooms.
Just as Wen Xian was about to look away, she froze. Walking over to the mushroom pile, she discovered they had grown considerably. Many had opened their caps, some as large as two of her palms, and several of the mushroom stems had sprouted new smaller mushrooms.
It was incredible. She stared at the mushroom pile for a long time, then looked back at the mostly empty space around her. An astonishing thought filled her mind: plants could actually grow inside this space?